


Fade

by skysedge



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/F, Introspection, Loss, Possibly Unrequited Love, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24578398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skysedge/pseuds/skysedge
Summary: It’s not about the arm. Not really. It’s about what else had been missing when she woke up.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 6
Kudos: 22
Collections: Summer Spinoff





	Fade

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Summer Spinoff, prompt 'Grief/Mourning'. 
> 
> Set directly after the fall of Beacon, so spoilers for that.

> _**Give me back the girl I was,** _
> 
> _**the beast I used to be** _

It could be morning. Then again, it could just as easily be evening. Yang doesn’t know. She doesn’t care either. 

Time had lost its grasp on her a while ago, there’s no way of knowing exactly how long it’s been since then, and the hours melt into one another with nothing to mark their passing. All she knows is that the light coming through her window is orange, the warm light of dawn or of dusk. She doesn’t know or care which. She can’t feel the warmth from it anyway, so it doesn’t matter. It could be neither, could be that the sky’s on fire and the world is ending, and it still doesn’t make a bit of difference. _She_ can’t make a difference. 

Not like this. 

She’s sitting up in her bed, the covers drawn up to her hips, a plate of food untouched on the bedside table beside her. Distantly she thinks that if she turns to see what kind of food it is, maybe she’ll know what time of day it is too. But turning her head would take far more energy than she has and so she doesn’t bother, stays staring out at the orange sky with blank, dull eyes that sting with how bright it is. They begin to water, running down her cheeks like tears and _hah_ isn’t that funny because she hasn’t cried in what feels like forever. She can’t remember how. Maybe she can’t do that anymore either. Can’t cry, can’t eat, can’t hold both knife and fork at the same time even if she wanted to. 

But it’s not about the arm. Not really. It’s about what else had been missing when she woke up. 

There’s a lot _more_ missing now, of course. Purpose. Hope. Interests. Ruby. Barely anything left. Just Dad, downstairs, walking softly so as not to disturb her. Not the way they used to be around each other so maybe that’s something else she’s lost too. She’s no stranger to loss, she’s already got this massive garbage pile in her heart of lost things, lost people, and how stupid she’d been to think she could get some of it back. None of it matters now. Not Mom, not the childhood she should have had, not the big sister she should have been. The pile’s getting so big it’d block out this orange sky if it were real. 

Arm, gone. Ruby, gone. Weiss, Pyrrha, her teachers, her rivals, classes, ambitions, world order, _everything._

Gone. 

She remembers thinking, just before it happened, that _it’s a sacrifice worth making._ Sure, she might be being reckless, she might not come out of this, but at least she’ll have achieved something, kept someone safe. Someone who should have been there when she woke up. Someone she would have given anything for. 

Blake is...no. Blake _was_ something to her. Things are different now. Maybe Blake is looking at the same sky right now, wherever she’s run to. Her eyes had always looked magical at dawn or dusk, the amber shining brighter than the sky, bold and bright and beautiful. Yang would have done anything to have them shine for her like that. 

She pictures them now and feels nothing. It’s not like her at all but she’ll settle for it. Feeling nothing is better than the searing, crushing betrayal that had come before. 

The sky outside the window dims, the colour bleeding out into the shadows of evening. She watches the colours dwindle and feels a little more of herself fade away with them. Whenever she had thought about dying before, she had always thought she’d go out in a blaze of glory, a radiant fireball lighting up the sky. Instead she’s dying by degrees, turning invisible, becoming part of the furniture. Turns out she didn’t know herself at all. 

At least she has an answer as to the time, now that the sky is turning black. It’s evening. She should sleep. Her eyelids are heavy, her body aching, but sleep brings only flashes of pain, of violence, and of beauty all caught up in the middle. 

With a monumental effort, she drags her eyes to the bedside table. Dad’s left some dinner, cold by now. She eats it just to stay awake. It’ll be morning again soon enough. Hopefully she’ll disappear by the time the sun rises. 

> _**Call me a beast** _  
>  _**But one which can no longer love you** _

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics at start and end from 'Girl With The Lion's Tail' by SJ Tucker.


End file.
